Thomas Brooks "All Tears Of Godley Sorrow Drop From The Eye Of Faith"

(Thomas Brooks, "A Cabinet of Choice Jewels" 1669)

"They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced--and
shall mourn." Zechariah 12:10

All godly sorrow is the fruit and effect of evangelical faith.
Godly sorrow flows from faith--as the stream from the fountain,
the branch from the root, and the effect from the cause. All
gracious mourning flows from looking, from believing. Nothing
breaks the heart of a sinner like a look of faith. All tears of
godly sorrow drop from the eye of faith. Godly sorrow
rises and falls--as faith rises and falls. The more a man is
able by faith to look upon a pierced Christ--the more his
heart will mourn over all the dishonors which he has done
to Christ. The more deep and wide the wounds are, which
faith shows me in the heart and sides of Christ--the more
my heart will be wounded for sinning against Christ.

The free love and favor of God, and His unspeakable goodness
and mercy manifested in Jesus Christ to poor sinners--is the
very spring and fountain of all evangelical sorrow. Nothing
breaks the heart of a poor sinner like the sight of God's free
love in Christ, the Redeemer. A man cannot seriously look upon
the firstness, the freeness, the greatness, the unchangeableness,
the everlastingness, and the matchlessness of God's free favor
and love in Christ--with a hard heart, or with dry eyes! It is
only such a love as this, which sets the soul a-mourning and
a-lamenting over a crucified Christ.

The fears of wrath, of hell, and of condemnation--works unsound
hearts to mourn. But it is the sight of a bleeding, dying Savior--
which sets sincere, gracious souls a-mourning.

My Family

  

My Boys

  

My Soldier, Lord keep him Safe!

  

Chad And Calista playing War.

  

The Covenant of Works Gen. 2:4-17 by the Rev. Todd Bordow

It is imperative that you understand the covenant of works. You may not realize it but the future of the church and of the gospel depends upon it. Now this may sound rather pretentious for me to say. After all, you may have been a Christian for many years and have never needed to use the term before.

But my concern is not first and foremost about the term, but its meaning. When God created man, he entered into a covenant with him. Every time in Scripture that God relates to man, he does so in the form of a covenant. If we want to understand the nature of our relationship to God, we must therefore understand the covenant he has made with us.

Covenants were common in the ancient world. A king would make a covenant with his subjects. He would write out the stipulations, or laws, for his people to follow. After giving his laws, he would list the blessings and curses to come upon them based upon whether they obeyed or disobeyed his laws. If they obeyed all his laws, the king would grant them protection from their enemies and bless them with the riches of his kingdom. If they disobeyed his laws he would punish them.

After the king had written out his covenant, he would choose a physical sign to serve as a reminder of the terms of the covenant. This sign would also seal the people to perform the duties of the covenant, and seal them in the curses if they did not obey the terms. Think about our modern contracts. The signature on the bottom of the contract serves as a reminder of the contract, and it legally seals the signatory to do what the contract stipulates.

Our Westminster Confession speaks of two covenants in Scripture; the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The covenant God made with man in the garden is a covenant of works. Adam represented all mankind in this covenant. In the covenant of works God the great king gave Adam His law.

He required Adam to keep that law if humanity was to receive God's eternal blessings.

Adam was warned of the curse that mankind would incur if he failed to keep the law of the covenant. And the Lord gave Adam a physical sign to remind him and seal him in that covenant.

Chapter 2 of Genesis introduces God's covenant of works with Adam. We see from the beginning that the God of the covenant is a good God, a God to be trusted. In v. 4 Moses introduces a new name for God. In chapter 1 He had been called "Elohim," "God" in your English Bibles. Elohim is the God of creation.

But in v. 4 He is called "Yahweh Elohim,""Lord God." Elohim is His creation name; Yahweh is His covenant name. It is His personal name. Only those who know Him in an intimate way know Him by this name.

So in chapter 2 God reveals himself not only as the creator, but He who has entered into covenant with man. The Lord God would give Adam every reason in the world to keep the terms of the covenant. Adam would have ample evidence to trust that God would fulfill the promises if Adam kept the law.

If Adam failed, it would not be because God had left some deficit in the creation that Adam needed. If a poor man steals a loaf of bread from a rich man, we know it is wrong, but we at least we are somewhat sympathetic. But when a rich man steels a loaf of bread from a poor man, we are much more indignant. As you see how God abundantly provided for Adam, you are to see that Adam's sin is all the more sinful and repugnant.

In Genesis 2 God ensures that Adam has everything he would need in the creation, including a helpmate. In vv. 5-7 we are informed of two deficits in the creation that needed solving. V. 5 says that there was no plant of the field in the earth. This Hebrew word for "plant" refers specifically to the wild growth on the hills that require rain to grow. This would include the grass the cattle and sheep needed to graze on. In the Middle East during the dry winters, the hills are bare, but when the spring rains come everything turns green.

The second deficit in v. 5 was that there was no herb in the field. This Hebrew word for "herb" refers to cultivated growth, such as wheat and barley. No wild vegetation for the domesticated animals, and no cultivated vegetation for man.

Now two reasons are given for these deficits. V. 5 says that the wild shrubs had not grown on the hills because the Lord God had not yet caused it to rain. And the reason given for no cultivated vegetation was is that there was no man to till the ground. God could have plowed the fields supernaturally, but He chose instead to use the ordinary means of man to do so.

So we are given the deficits, and the reasons for the deficits, and now we are given the divine solutions to these deficits. God comes to the rescue and solves both these problems for Adam. V. 7 shows how God solved the problem of no cultivated crops, and v. 6 shows how God solved the problem of no grass on the hills.

V. 6 has been the cause of much difficulty, and I know your translations speak of a mist or a stream, but I would suggest another translation. For the text to make sense; it must tell us how God solved the problem of v. 5; that there were no wild plants because the Lord had not yet sent rain. I suggest to you that v. 6 states that God began to make rain clouds rise from the land and water the whole surface of the ground; in other words, ordinary rain. The creation accounts in Psalm 104 and Prov. 8 teach that God created our system of evaporation and rain from the beginning. The Hebrew word translated "mist" or "stream" can also be translated rain cloud, which will lend much sense to the passage.

So the Lord solved the first problem by sending rain on the hills. Now God solves the second problem; there was no man to cultivate the ground so he creates man. Now man will till the ground so that he would have abundant food to eat.

V. 7 returns us to Day 6 of the creation but gives us more information. God fashioned man from the dust of the ground. Man was from the earth. There is a negative and positive aspect to v. 7. The negative we will discuss in a moment. Positively, though man was made from dust as the animals, he was created differently. God personally formed him as a potter fashions his prized cup God created man uniquely in His own image, body and soul.

So physically man was provided everything he would need. But man not only needs physical sustenance, he needs spiritual sustenance.

So God creates a beautiful garden for man and places him in it. This luscious garden would be a place of intimate fellowship between God and man. This is confirmed in the Book of Revelation where the place of perfect, unbroken communion with God is described as a garden.

In Ezekiel the Garden of Eden is pictured as atop a mountain. The geographic description found in vv. 10-14 is from the vantage point of standing on the mountain overlooking the lands below. A river watered the trees of Eden and branched off into four rivers that watered the whole land.

God gave to man an abundance of provision for his work and his enjoyment. Among other things waiting for man to explore and use were gold, onyx and bdellium. Onyx is a multi-colored quartz stone and bdellium is a substance from trees used for fragrant aromas. Adam truly was the man who had everything! He had no reason to complain.

Adam's descendants were given the job of subduing these lands. Work itself was not the result of the fall, toil was. Adam's descendants had wonderful work to do. But God called Adam to a special work. In v. 15 Adam was to cultivate the garden of God and guard it from being profaned. This word "keep" is the Hebrew word for "guard." The garden was God's temple on earth. Adam was to beautify it and protect it. Of course the serpent would soon attempt to profane God's temple. Adam was to rebuke Satan from the garden with God's authority.

So the Lord as the great King created a beautiful kingdom for his people. Now in vv. 16&17 the King reveals the terms of the covenant with his subjects. Here is what Adam must do if he and his race were to receive the blessings of the king, and not be cursed in judgment.

What did God require of man? God required obedience. Because He is a holy God He required perfect obedience. God always requires perfect obedience; He can never change.

Adam was given a test to prove himself obedient to the king. The terms were clear. If he refrained from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good or evil, he would receive the reward for his obedience. If he ate of the tree, he would surely die. Placed before Adam was life and death.

Now we said that in the Bible when a covenant is made it includes a physical sign reminding the parties of their obligations and rewards. In v. 9 God places before Adam a sign. In the midst of the garden God places a tree of life. If Adam passed his probation, if he passed the test of obedience, he could enter into that life signified by the tree of life.

Now what made the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so different from all the other fruit? Why was only that tree off limits?

Adam did not know. That's the point. Adam would need to trust in God who knows good from evil. He would be required to obey God simply because God said it. He would have to live in complete dependence on God's Word in telling him what was good and evil. To his eyes the fruit would all look the same. But Adam was not allowed to take the prerogative of God and decide for himself what is right and wrong. He would either remain in dependence upon God or proclaim his own authority apart from God.

The Lord clearly warned Adam that if he failed to pass the test he would die. Death here not only includes physical death, but spiritual death. Adam and his race would be spiritually separated from God for all eternity.

But this was a temporary test; Adam was under probation. If Adam passed God would reward Adam and his descendants with life. During this probation the tree of life would serve as an encouragement to press on in obedience so that he may attain the reward.

Now what did that tree of life represent to Adam? It couldn't represent the life he already possessed. No the tree of life pointed to a life beyond Adam's present existence. You see as special as man was, he was still made of dust. He was earthly. Remember what we read from I Cor 15? First comes the earthly, then the heavenly. God could take His breath out of man as He breathed it into man. Isaiah says as much in 40:6&7: "All flesh is grass, but the grass withers." Adam was created able to die.

Man would need a new and better breath from God. He would need a better body; a glorified body that could live in God's presence forever. Adam's body was earthly, but it was not yet heavenly. God lived in heaven.

Adam also was created able to sin. He needed to come to a point where he could no more fall away from God. Adam saw in that tree of life both the promise of a glorified body and the promise of a soul confirmed in righteousness.

There was even a deficit in man's fellowship with God. You see, in the garden God came and went. He did not remain there. Fellowship was not constant. And God would not allow Himself to be truly seen by man. John said that no man had ever seen God, including Adam. That Tree of Life held out the promise of a time when God would reveal Himself fully to man. And of course the garden itself was not God's eternal temple. Like the OT tabernacle it was a temporary provision pointing to something greater.

Now we have all the components of a covenant. We have two parties; God and Adam. Adam represented mankind in this covenant. We have the stipulations of this covenant; the law Adam must obey to receive everlasting life. The curse he would receive if he disobeyed. We have the sign of the covenant. The Tree of Life signified of what was to come if Adam fulfilled the covenant of works. Upon fulfillment his corruptible body would become incorruptible. The peccable, or ability to sin, would become impeccable, not able to sin. The earthly garden would be translated into the heavenly one. And partial fellowship with God would become full fellowship.

But Adam rebelled. You rebelled. You broke the covenant of works in Adam. Eternal death was what God had promised. All men are now born under the curse of the covenant of works. God cannot change His terms and still be holy. The covenant of works is still in full force for all mankind. If man is to attain to that state of everlasting life, he must obey God perfectly. But man cannot obey God because he is born a sinner.

The Lord would have been perfectly justified in fulfilling his promise of judgment and leaving it at that. But God made a second covenant after the first one. This we call the covenant of grace, or the gospel.

Did God then change his mind; did He change his strict terms of the covenant of works? No, He changed the one he made the covenant with.

There was another Adam; Paul calls Him the last Adam. He would represent a chosen race. The covenant of works was made with this new representative. If this Man obeyed God perfectly, the rewards of the covenant would be His and all those He represented.

It wasn't as easy for the second Adam. A barren desert instead of a garden; alone instead of a helper. Rejection from his closest friends. Mocking from the religious leaders. And of course the painful and shameful death of the cross. This was the covenant of works the Father gave the Son to perform. Christ's obedience must include suffering the punishment of those whom he would represent, for the penalty of breaking the covenant of works must be paid.

But Jesus Christ, our second Adam and covenant head, lived by every Word that proceeded from God's mouth. He rebuked Satan instead of falling for his lies. He fulfilled all the obligations of the covenant of works. He obeyed God perfectly. He laid down his life in obedience to his Father. The Second Adam brought God's eternal blessings to his race; those blessings Adam failed to merit.

As a tree was at the center of the first Adam's probation, so a tree was at the center of the Second Adam's probation. For Christ to fulfill the terms of the covenant He must obey all the way to the tree of Calvary. Ironically that cross became for us our tree of life.

Do you see how important it is that you understand the covenant of works. Because Christ fulfilled the terms of Gods covenant for you, for you it is a covenant of grace. All you receive from God is the result of Christ's obedience in your place. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

You are no longer in a works relationship with God. Your obedience to God does not flow out of a desire to meet the terms of a covenant. Your obedience must flow out of the realization that the terms have already been met by your Savior. Your obedience flows out of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit Christ poured out on His church upon His ascension.

Do not get this wrong! Do not mix the two covenants. This is the whole reason the Protestants broke away from the Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics teach that we are still under a covenant of works with God. In their thinking Christ fulfilled some of the terms of the covenant, but our obedience to Christ fulfills the rest of the terms. This is not the gospel; this is why we are Protestants.

The cup you are about to drink is the cup of the new covenant in his blood. It is the sign of the covenant of grace. It serves as a regular reminder of the covenant you are in; a covenant where Jesus' body and blood fulfilled the terms and reconciled you to God. As with the tree of life in the garden, this sign is a foretaste of the life you will partake of in the new heavens and earth, when Christ will fellowship with us in person. Until then he fellowships with us as we gaze upon him by faith in this meal.

The church can only survive if she knows the different between grace and works. Knowing how Christ fulfilled the terms of the covenant of works in your behalf will prove to your own assurance a healing balm to your souls, and will bring about true obedience of the heart overcome by grace.

Life cannot come from your obedience. Life comes from Christ our covenant head. Let us by faith feed upon Him for everlasting life. Amen

Absentia

I have been off line for awhile we moved and my computer died. My bro. the computer whiz got me up and running again, and I found a great deal on a new one. So me and my seveteen year old son are both back on-line. I am not sure what is more dangerous him or me being online. I am looking forward to letting you know what is going on in my extremely provincial life. My oldest son is graduating from security trainung in the Air Force and says he was told he will be going to Kuwait. We are praying he stays in a peaceful area, But the Lord's will be done. I will keep you informed about my boring Life. Pray that this insane war will be over soon and all our service men will come home soon.

Genesis 15 by Rev. Todd Bordow

More and more Christians are coming to understand the importance of covenant in the Bible. Whenever the Lord establishes a relationship with man, he does so by way of a covenant; so much so that theologian Geerhardus Vos once wrote, “God says nothing to man apart from covenant.”
Children, a covenant is a legal, binding arrangement between two parties. Think of a contract, or the promises made in a wedding ceremony. What you need to know is that in the Bible, as well as in the ancient world, there were two types of covenants; unilateral covenants and bilateral covenants. Bilateral covenants were covenants where both parties promised to fulfill the terms. Unilateral covenants were covenants where only on party promised to fulfill the terms.
An example of a bilateral covenant would be a covenant between kings. In this type of treaty, each king would bind himself to fulfill the terms of the agreement. The treaty was then ratified in a covenant ceremony, where each king would officially swear upon his life to fulfill his terms of the covenant.
An example of a unilateral covenant would be where a king would swear to grant a servant a tract of land. A modern example would be a last will and testament. A parent legally binds himself to ensure that his children receive a certain amount of money when he dies. There is nothing the children agree to; the children are only the receipts of this unilateral promise.
In Genesis 15 the Lord makes a covenant with Abraham. This covenant is unilateral; a covenant of pure grace. It must be unilateral because in Adam Abraham was already a covenant breaker. The first covenant between God and Adam was bilateral; a covenant of works. Adam needed to obey God for man to be given eternal life.
All people, including Abraham, are born into this world covenant breakers because of their father Adam. People think at Judgment Day God will look at their whole life and decide if that person did enough good to enter heaven. But you were born with a verdict of “guilty” already over your head, because in Adam you broke the covenant with God.
But the Lord promises in Genesis 15 to save Abraham from the consequences of breaking the original covenant. In this covenant the Lord promises Abraham all the blessings of eternal salvation, including a relationship with God, forgiveness of sins, an eternal paradise to live in, the righteousness needed to stand before a holy God, and that from his offspring the Lord would form a great band of people from around the world who would also be beneficiaries of this covenant.
All this is too much for Abraham to believe; he often struggles to believe it. In v. 1 God appears to Abraham in a vision and repeats the promises. Abraham, do not fear, I am your shield and I will greatly reward you.
We have seen that when the Lord tells Abraham not to fear, it means he is afraid. Why would Abraham be afraid? Well, remember that Abraham rejected a deal with the king of Sodom that would have made him rich and powerful. Abraham didn’t want anyone thinking he was relying on that king for riches and protection, but on God, so he turned down the offer. Now he was again weak and vulnerable in the midst of all the powerful kings in the Ancient Near East.
Added to this fear was the growing worry as time went on that he would never bear children. God had promised him offspring, but he is over 75, and his wife over 65! It was impossible for them to bear children! Abraham needed assurance that God would do as he promised. So God comes to Abraham and gives him assurance just when he needed it. Do not fear, I am your shield; I will protect you, and you shall receive all I promised.
Though these promises would have a temporary fulfillment with the nation Israel, Abraham understood that God was promising him the gospel. Abraham knew that from his physical descendants a Savior would be born who would take away his sin. Abraham knew that the Land of Canaan pictured the paradise God’s people would inherit at the resurrection. Jesus said in John 8 that Abraham rejoiced that a savior would come and bring them to a city from heaven.
In vv. 2&3 Abraham asks a question to God about the promises. How can this be since you have not given me any offspring, and my servant will end up being my heir?
We can certainly sympathize with Abraham; everyone else around him was having babies, but his wife and he remained childless. Lord, are you sure you are going to do all these things for me?
Abraham is not being disrespectful here, he is being honest. He is pouring out to God his doubts. It is difficult to believe the gospel sometimes, is it not? We all feel like Abraham at times. As I was on the ship last week looking out over the vast sea, I couldn’t help but thinking how puny I am, and wondering why the Creator of all this would have anything to do with me.
Sometimes, after a particularly bad week, where our sinfulness is rather apparent and our hearts rather cold, we wonder if we really are in a relationship with God. We rightly think, I need to go to church and hear how God accepts me because of Christ and not because of my Christian performance. Abraham simply needed to hear the gospel again.
God answers Abraham’s concerns by bringing Abraham outside and instructing him to look up into the night sky. Abraham, do you know how many offspring I will give you? Do you know how many of your children will live in Paradise with me? Look up, try to count the starts. You will not even being able to count your eternal family.
In v. 6 we have that glorious statement that Abraham believed God’s promise, and God counted Abraham as righteous. Since Adam’s fall this is every man’s need; to be counted as righteous in the eyes of a holy God. God freely grants Abraham the status of “righteous” when Abraham believed the gospel.
The Apostle Paul uses this verse to prove that we are given a right standing with God through faith alone, not through our good works. Abraham had done many noble deeds; he had left his country to follow God, he had offered his nephew Lot the best of the land, he had rescued Lot in a great battle, he had given Melchizedeck a tenth of the spoils; but none of these was the cause of his right standing before God. Abraham was granted all these promises because he believed God.
It is not that Abraham’s faith was so impressive that God was bound to reward such faith. Abraham a sinner had nothing to offer a holy God, even his faith was imperfect. It was not the quality of his faith that saved Abraham, but the object of his faith, Jesus Christ the Savior.
This brings us to vv. 7-21. It is time for the covenant ratification ceremony. Outside of the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, this may be the most remarkable passage in the entire Bible.
God reminds Abraham in v. 7 that he is the sovereign Lord who called Abraham out of his idol worship to serve the true God. Abraham now belongs to the Lord by ownership. God called Abraham to confer upon him abundant and wonderful blessings. Because Abraham was still struggling to believe all this, evidenced by his question in v. 8, the Lord seals his promise with a covenant ceremony.
In those days, two parties would ratify a covenant by splitting apart animals and forming a bloody pathway between the carcasses. Each party would walk through the bloody pathway, which was in essence saying, may I become like these animals if I fail to perform the terms of this covenant. To walk through the animals was to call a curse upon yourself for breaking the covenant.
The Lord instructs Abraham to gather together the animals for the ceremony, then to split them in two to make the bloody path. What was Abraham thinking as he gathered up the animals? Since God is not here to walk the path, will I be required to walk through and pledge my obedience? Who would swear upon his death to fulfill the terms of the covenant? Whose blood was on the line here?
Vultures fly down and try to eat the carcasses, but Abraham shoos them away. In the Old Testament, birds of prey symbolize the enemies of God’s people. Not everyone is thrilled with this covenant God is making with Abraham. The spiritual forces of darkness especially do not want God to make such a binding agreement to save sinners.
Gathering and cutting up those animals must have made Abraham tired, so at sunset he fell asleep. In his sleep a dreadful darkness engulfs him, a darkness he had never experienced before. In the darkness the Lord reveals that Abraham’s descendants would not experience the promises until they first suffered. They will be enslaved for many years, but after an appointed time God would bring them to the Promised Land and judge their enemies.
Abraham learns that the blessings of God’s covenant will only come through suffering. To some degree Abraham was experiencing in that nightmare the darkness of Christ’s sufferings; those sufferings that would enable these promises to be fulfilled terenally.
As extraordinary as all this seemed to Abraham, nothing could have prepared him for what was to come next. Abraham is still asleep. Soon he would need to wake up for the ceremony. But in his sleep he sees a large pot with smoke spewing out, forming a cloud. Next to this pot was a burning torch. Remember that God led Israel by a cloud and pillar of fire? This cloud and pillar of fire represented God’s legs.
God had come down to walk through bloody pathway. Abraham beholds God walking between the animal carcasses. Abraham would not be required to walk through it all. God would be the one to pledge his loyalty to Abraham!
Beloved, do you see what is happening? God is pronouncing a curse upon himself if he does not give Abraham all he promised. God is saying, may I die if I do not perform all the promises of this covenant.
In essence God did exactly that. To confer what he promised God would need to come down to earth in the form of a man and die on the cross. The Lord of glory was crucified so that we might inherit all these promises. We who trust in Jesus Christ are as the stars of the sky, and we will inherit paradise forever.
How gracious is our God? As the mighty Creator he has the right to make the demands. He has the right to demand that we walk through the animals and pledge our loyalty to be saved. But instead, he made his own eternal Son take upon himself the wrath due to our covenant breaking. We should be like those animals, but instead Christ died in our place.
Have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ to save you? This is the work of God; that ye believe on Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. He asks nothing of you but faith in the work of his Son, because you have nothing in yourself to please him. Humble yourself and believe; be justified by faith like Abraham by believing in the Savior Jesus Christ.
Christian, as Abraham’s children you will also doubt. Sometimes the promises of God also seem impossible; how can he love me so much? To assure your doubts, God binds himself in a covenant ceremony. God can never forget the covenant he bound himself to.
Man breaks covenants all the time. Husbands and wives break the covenants they make to each other at their marriage ceremony. Political leaders break covenants. But God never lies. He cannot break the covenant he made.
God shall fulfill his promises to you, and no matter how weak you are, no matter how often you fall, empty handed you came to him trusting only in the merits of Jesus Christ to save you, and God will do all he promised. He will lead through the hardships of life to possess the Promised Land with all Abraham’s children. Amen

Matthew 26:36-46 A sermon preached By Rev. Todd Bordow

A garden is a place of beauty and peace. Throughout the Bible, gardens represent the wonderful communion and harmony between God and man. In the beginning, the Lord created a garden as the place for fellowship for him and his image bearers. When our father Adam fell, man was kicked out of the garden, thus cast out of fellowship with God.
The Old Testament anticipates the restoration of fellowship between God and man by using the symbol of a restored Garden of Eden. Ezekiel 36:35 says; And they will say, ``This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden.’ The Book of Revelation describes the new heavens and earth as a paradise garden where God and man live in perfect communion.
Between the Garden of Eden and the garden of paradise stands another decisive garden; the Garden of Gethsemane. To restore the damage caused by Adam in the first garden, and to bring man to the garden of paradise, the Son of God needed to endure the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane.
Gethsemane is the garden of testing for our Second Adam, Jesus Christ. As Adam was tested in Eden, Jesus is tested in Gethsemane. Christ will be tested more severely than Adam ever was.
As the Lord Jesus approaches the garden, hours away from his arrest, the apprehension of his imminent sufferings begin to overwhelm him. We can never fully grasp the agony Christ experienced in Gethsemane, but each of the four gospels adds to the picture.
In John, the Lord says, Now my soul is troubled. Luke writes that Jesus was in agony. Mark reports that in the garden, Jesus began to be greatly distressed and troubled. Matthew notes that the Lord began to be sorrowful and troubled, and then records Christ’s own words, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
In Gethsemane the Father granted the Son a clear apprehension of what lay before him on the cross. As he began to feel the weight of what would soon transpire, he commanded eight of the disciples to remain near the entrance of the garden. He then took three of his closest disciples deeper into the garden for support while he prayed to his Father alone.
As he walks deeper with the three, Christ’s emotions rise to the surface. His closest friends would see fear and sadness on his face like never before.
The Lord asked the three to watch with him, which we should understand as asking them to pray for him in this, his neediest hour. Then Jesus moves further into the trees alone, falls to the ground, and unleashes the full force of his fears to God in prayer.
We see from Christ’s prayer that it was not the apprehension of his physical sufferings that caused him such anguish. Many martyrs have faced torture and death bravely, and even calmly.
What distressed our Lord to the point of death was the apprehension of the cup he was about to receive. In the Old Testament, God’s anger against sin was described as a cup of wrath he would pour out on sinners at Judgment Day.
If you take sin lightly, behold our Lord’s horror as he contemplates falling under God’s judgment. How bitter must the wrath of God against sin be if even the apprehension of it caused our Lord to faint with fear?
Jesus, who in his divine nature had enjoyed full fellowship with his Father throughout eternity, agonized over the prospect of the Father turning away from him on the cross. He who only knew the Father’s love must now experience his justice. Jesus would soon undergo hell for his people, and the apprehension of hell caused him to shudder in aguish.
Here in the garden would be Christ’s greatest test. Not only would the Father grant him a sense of what he would soon undertake, and thus Jesus would be tempted to shrink back, but Satan would now be allowed to direct the full force of his temptations against Jesus.
Would not Satan again offer Christ the whole world if he gave up his quest to die for his people? Would he not tempt Christ with his weakness; you will not be able to bear up when the storm clouds of God’s anger engulfs you; even now you can barely stand considering the prospect of it?
Satan would have tempted Jesus to abandon the cross considering the sinfulness of the world. The people of this world have done nothing but oppose you. They will soon dress you up and ridicule you; they will parade you through the streets of Jerusalem and laugh at you as you hang on a cross. They are not worthy of you; let them remain with me where they belong.
But the fiercest temptation would come after Jesus stopped praying to check on his three disciples. He walked back and found the three disciples asleep.
Imagine in your most desperate hour, when you asked your best friend to stay awake and help you; that he fell asleep not long after asking. The disciples did not have enough concern for Jesus to stay awake and pray for him. The Lord expresses his hurt to them; you cannot even watch with me one hour?
How easy for Satan to say to our Lord, “why should you endure such suffering for those who are so ungrateful? Why should you receive the wrath of God for those who claim do not have enough concern for you to stay awake one hour?” To make matters worse, three times Jesus finds them asleep, even after expressing his urgent need for their support.
We can barely comprehend the hellish agony our Lord experienced alone in this garden. If he shrinks back from his mission and gives into his fears or Satan’s temptations, we are all lost, and have only the most dreadful future awaiting us.
But our Savior prevailed. Though he cries out, Father, if there is any way for me not to drink this cup, may it be so; though he expresses his complete horror at what his Father had sent him to do, he resigns himself to the will of God; not my will, but thine be done.
The Second Adam uttered the words our first Adam should have uttered. Though the temptation of the serpent was enticing, Adam should have said to God, not my will, but thy will be done.
Our second Adam passed the test and arose victorious. He passively submitted to trusting his Father, and he resisted Satan to the point of death. When Jesus utters, thy will by done, nothing would stop the Son from saving you.
Our weakness and lack of devotion, represented in the three sleeping disciples, did not stop Christ from loving us unto death. Though he was deeply hurt by the disciples, he loved them so much that he even stops twice praying for himself to check on them.
And after rebuking them for their selfishness, he speaks to them compassionately; watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation, for the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. He excuses the ingratitude of Peter and the disciples.
Because they possessed renewed hearts, the Lord commends the good desires in them. I know you desire to be more faithful, but the flesh is weak. The "flesh" here does not refer to the physical body as much as simply man this side of heaven, man still not fully sanctified.
So as Satan was tempting Jesus to give up on us, Christ affirms his love for us; a love that motivated him to continue the path of suffering.
You also see Christ’s victory in the calmness in which he speaks at the end of his prayers. The hour is now at hand, the son of Man will now be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going.
Do you see the contrast from the entrance into the garden to the exit? He entered in turmoil, he exits in calm resignation. He entered in distress and fear; he exits in bold confidence. As an answer to his prayers the Father granted Jesus a peace which surpasses understanding.
You are invited into Gethsemane that you may behold the price of your salvation; that you may see your Savior agonize over the wages of your sin would pay if would did not die for you.
You are invited in to see the excellencies of your Saviors’ love for you, for he was thinking of you, Christian, as he withstood the fierce temptations of Satan. He longed for your salvation more than he cared for his own well-being.
You are invited into Gethsemane that you may see the only one worthy to represent you before God. See his perfections in the midst of the fiercest trials. You only stand before God because of your Savior’s perfections.
You are invited into Gethsemane that you may learn an important lesson about yourself. Once Satan realized he could not tempt the perfect one, he devoted his attention to tempting you. As Jesus was experiencing the onslaught of the enemy, he thought of your weakness in withstanding Satan’s temptations.
The Lord warned you from Gethsemane not to trust in your strength or wisdom to remain faithful to God. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. To enter into temptation is to succumb to it; it is to deny the Lord out of fear, or embarrassment, or selfishness.
If the holy Son of God needed to pray to withstand the fiery darts of the evil one, do you think you can stand apart from prayer? Your prayers will be answered because Jesus your representative withstood the test in Gethsemane; he won the battle and brought you to God.
Satan will tempt you to give up serving God; to give up on God’s people because of their weaknesses. He will tempt you to lie and cheat to get what you want. He will tempt you with sexual immorality. He will tempt you to fear people instead of God. He will tempt you with the love of money.
How will you withstand his temptations? You may be willing, but you are weak. The answer; watch and pray; trust in the Lord and come to him regularly for strength.
You are invited into Gethsemane so you may not take sin lightly. Jesus saw the horror of sin’s consequences and cried out in fear. If anyone does not flee to Jesus Christ for salvation, he will experience the awful wrath of God that made our Lord shudder.
You are invited into Gethsemane so that you would see how much God hates sin; that you would not simply ignore the sin in your life, but you would confess it and ask God for help in not continuing in it.
You are invited into Gethsemane to help you when you are tempted to grumble and complain. When people treat you poorly, when you think life has treated you unfairly, come and behold the agony the holy Son underwent for you; the righteous for the unrighteous. How can you complain; how can you pay back evil for evil, when Jesus paid back your evil with good; even with his own life?
The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a garden. In between the two gardens is Gethsemane. At Gethsemane the Covenant Mediator restored fellowship between you and God. Where Adam failed, Christ prevailed. Because Christ prevailed in that garden; your place is secure in that heavenly garden, the garden the Bible describes as place with no more testing, no more curse, no more death, and no more tears. Amen

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